


The Promise

by Everydayishark



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Heavy Angst, M/M, i warned you, it's fucking sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 19:38:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9509744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everydayishark/pseuds/Everydayishark
Summary: Most vivid amongst the memories of his hometown was the grand apple orchard behind his old house, stretching on for miles and miles. The smell of the blossoms that would welcome you from far away. The taste of the first apples, lush and firm with just a hint of sourness. The taste of his lips, sweet and soft, as they lay hidden in the long grass between the trees.They make a promise beneath the trees.





	

Most vivid amongst the memories of his hometown was the grand apple orchard behind his old house, stretching on for miles and miles. The smell of the blossoms that would welcome you from far away. The taste of the first apples, lush and firm with just a hint of sourness. The taste of his lips, sweet and soft, as they lay hidden in the long grass between the trees. That was what he remembered most, probably. Some days he can still feel his lips against his own, or the fingers tangled in his hair or the bright laughter as the grass tickled his face when he softly pushed him down.  
  
(Those days would hurt the most)  
  
He hasn't been back there. Not since then. He hasn't had the heart. So he sits in his big city apartment, all safe concrete and steel, sturdy and resilient, as far away as possible from the simple country life he once led. His once rough and calloused hands now soft and smooth. His dark tan replaced with a paler, inner city kind of glow.   
  
(Sometimes he looks in the mirror and doesn't recognize himself, and it scares him. He wonders if he would still recognize him. If he would be as disappointed in him as he is himself)  
  
He ran away from that life. As far away and as fast as possible, without looking back.  
  
Some days he remembers looking at the stars, so bright and clear without all the city light pollution. Laying side by side beneath the trees. Silent, breathless. Hands clasped together in the damp grass. Faces flushed as they kiss under the soft light of the moon, whispering sweet nothings to each other.

He squeezes into the suit. No matter how many years he’s lived in the city, he still feels uncomfortable wearing _slacks_ and _loafers_ , but his job requires him to be in uniform _._ He hates wearing the tie that tightens around his neck like a noose. Even if it’s a noose of his own choosing.

(Sometimes he welcomes it, the feeling of being suffocated. It’s a welcome change from the suffocating that comes from inside.)

His mother suggests he should put up pictures of him in his apartment. (“He’d want to be with you,” she’d say, “won’t his presence soothe you?”)

But all his presence brings him now is pain.

Pain and endless memories.

\--

The first time they meet among the trees Hyunwoo is only twelve years old. He’s helping his father make his rounds among the trees (the apples are still too small to eat, only about the size of a plum). He’s trailing behind, looking at the shapes of the clouds above his head as he spots a tuft of blond hair in the tree up ahead.

Curious, he walks up to the tree, where he finds a boy around his age, head poking through the leaves as he looks over the orchard from above.

“What are you doing?” He asks.

The boy looks down and smirks. “I can totally see my house from here!”

“Cool.” Hyunwoo says. “D’you wanna come down?”

“Nah.” Replies the boy. “I’m on an adventure.”

“Okay.”

His dad calls his name, and Hyunwoo runs to catch up with him. About two hours later they finish their round, and Hyunwoo almost forgets about the boy until he hears a weak sobbing.

“You go ahead, dad. I’ll catch up with you later.”

Hyunwoo returns to the tree, where the boy is clinging on to the trunk. His eyes and nose are red from crying, but he pretends to look tough when Hyunwoo looks up to him.

“Hey are you okay? Can’t you come down?” Hyunwoo asks.

“N-no, I’m fine….!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes! ………. _no_. “ The no that follows is soft, barely a whisper, followed by a choked sob.

“Just stay there, I’ll come get you.”

“Okay.”

\--

He doesn’t even catch his name, that first time. All he remembers is that toothy smile after he helps him out of the tree, the wild blond hair sticking out everywhere. And the little blue overalls (Hyunwoo later finds out he never grows out of his love for overalls, all the way up until the end).

\--

Hyunwoo’s father dies when he is in his a freshman year in college. A heart attack, right in their own house. Hyunwoo travels back home. They hold a small funeral in the orchard. That day, the blossoming trees cry petals of white. He’s there, too. Holding Hyunwoo’s hand all the way through the ceremony. Hyunwoo knows he is squeezing too hard, sees him wincing when he thinks he isn’t looking, but he bears it for him, and he’s so, so thankful for that.

His father was his rock. His anchor. His hero. Seeing him at work in the orchard, tanned and muscular and happy, there is nothing Hyunwoo would rather be when he grows up. (But his interests change. His passions change, even though his love for the orchard would ever remain.)

\--

“Is this what you want to do with your life?” His mother asks, one day. He’s tired, always tired. Being the night guard in a hotel requires him to sleep in the daytime, but sleep has been hard to come by ever since that day. Insomnia has become a regular part of his life. Only after days, when his body is overcome by exhaustion, does he sleep.

Deep, fitful, dreamless.

 _Is this what he wants?_ Of course not.

What he wants is to go back, back to that day, to save him.

To stop him.

To tell him he loves him, at least one more time.

\--

They become friends, after Hyunwoo saves him from the tree.

Hyunwoo remembers one particular time, a few years later maybe, when they’re playing some new game while lying on the couch together. Suddenly, he puts down his controller.

“What do you wanna be when you’re old?” He’s dead serious, all of the sudden.

“I dunno. Maybe I’ll work in the orchard, like my dad.” Hyunwoo shrugs.

“Oh. But is that what you truly wanna do? Like, I really wanna be a fire fighter. Save lives and stuff. Isn’t there anything you like besides apples?”

(‘ _You_ ’, Hyunwoo almost says, but he swallows his tongue.)

“I dunno. I never really thought about it, I guess.”

He thinks about it a lot, from that day forward. He likes apples. He likes _him_. But he also likes drawing buildings, and trees, and furniture. Maybe he could be an architect. Maybe he could become a landscape engineer. Maybe he could be an interior designer.

He would always do things like that. He would always say things that made Hyunwoo think.

\--

He thinks about him a lot.

More than he’d like to admit, probably.

(His therapist says he needs to let go. Move on. Give it a place in his life instead of letting it dictate it. But Hyunwoo isn’t sure if he’s ready to let go. Or move on.)

He was his everything.

\--

They first kiss when Hyunwoo is 17. They go to prom (as friends), get tipsy on punch and excitement about starting their college life. Their colleges are miles apart, and Hyunwoo is afraid of losing him. He’s nervous the entire night. Hyunwoo walks him home, and they kiss, on the doorstep, and Hyunwoo’s heart flutters and instantly shatters at the thought of being apart from him for so long.

(They spend every day of their last summer before college together, carefully exploring their budding relationship. Hyunwoo is afraid that their friendship would somehow change, after they start dating, but everything’s the same, but more wonderful, more intimate. )

\--

Hearing his name hurts. It’s a common name, really, which doesn’t help. Every time someone checks into the hotel with his name his heart leaps. Foolishly. Hopelessly.

_Maybe it’s him._

At every Lee Minhyuk he cries, at every Lee Minhyuk he breaks down.

_Maybe it’s him._

But it’s not him. It’s never him.

Because _his_ Lee Minhyuk is dead.

\--

He does, indeed, become a firefighter. An officer, to be precise. The day he comes home showing off his badge, smiling wide, Hyunwoo couldn’t be more proud of him. He followed his dreams. He always has.  Hyunwoo pulls him on his lap, drawing him into a deep kiss. (They have sex on the couch, amongst unfinished blueprints and sketches Hyunwoo was working on earlier that day).

“I’m so happy,” he says, settling into Hyunwoo’s arms afterwards, “Now I can really save people.”

\--

If only he could have saved himself.

Hyunwoo tries not to think like that, but it’s hard. Why did all the people he saved live? Why did _he_ have to die? He knows he would have hated it, having him think like that.

He was always so optimistic, almost annoyingly so. Hyunwoo is more of a pessimist, these days. (back in the day though, Hyunwoo was often swept up in his optimism.)

\--

Their first fight was about dreams. Hyunwoo’s dreams, to be precise. Hyunwoo never finishes his college degree. After his father’s death, the apple business is failing. So Hyunwoo quits school to help out in the orchard.

Hyunwoo has to move back home.

He hates it. He hates it he hates it he hates it. They had been planning to live together, as soon as Hyunwoo was done with college. He wants him to follow his heart, become an architect, but Hyunwoo choses for his family business. (He makes peace with it, in the end, and they end up buying a little house at the edge of town together. It overlooks the orchards. He would look at him slaving away, in the burning sun or in the blistering rain, trying to save the business, and admire his dedication).

\--

He wonders if anything is left of the orchards, or if the trees have withered like his heart. (He has always thought the orchards were a part of him, as _he_ was a part of him.)

He wonders if it had been doomed from the start.

(The orchard, because his father refused to invest in modern tools and technology. _Them_ , because they were different as day and night.)

He was loud. Hyunwoo was quiet. An extrovert. An introvert. A dreamer. A realist. An optimist. A pessimist.

_Dead._

Alive.

\--

His ashes were spread amongst the trees, as per his request. He has a gravestone, in the cemetery, but there’s nothing there. It’s just a slab of stone, holding nothing but bad memories and regrets. He hasn’t been there, since the funeral.

He can’t.

All he has left of him is this ring. He was going to give it to him, on their anniversary. But he was too late.

Always too late.

\--

He sees the flames licking the building.  It’s too late. The fire has spread too much, too fast. The building is lost. He sees the fire fighters, his colleagues, standing outside. They’re blocking the perimeter, keeping everyone away.

Hyunwoo doesn’t see him.

“WHERE IS HE?” He yells.

They won’t look him in the eye.

They won’t tell him anything.

(They won’t tell him his soon-to-be-fiancée is stuck inside.)

(They won’t tell him his soon-to-be-fiancée is soon-to-be-dead.)

\--

Most vivid amongst the memories of his hometown was the grand apple orchard behind his old house, stretching on for miles and miles.

Hyunwoo doesn’t know how many years it’s been. (Maybe he does know. He just doesn’t want to know.)

He drives straight past their little house. There is nothing there but dust and pain and forgotten memories.

The town is mostly deserted. He knew that the small countryside farm towns were dying. He just didn’t know his was, too. He stops by his old house. It’s boarded up. Trash is littered all over the back, which has been overgrown by weeds and wildflowers.

He overlooks the fields which used to be the orchards. All the trees have died. What once were lush green fields is now a dusty, uninhabitable wasteland. Everything is dead.

How fitting.

He drives on, to the cemetery.

Despite the fact that he hasn’t been there ever since that day, he instantly finds his way to him. (He always has)

The stone is cracked and overgrown, the letters barely legible due to years of negligence. (He feels a pang of regret. He should have taken care of him— He should have been there for him)

He wipes the dust off the stone with his sleeve, slowly tracing the letters with his fingers. (Even though his ashes were scattered in the wind, he should not be in a place as run down and dead as this)

He pulls out some weeds, cleaning the place around him.

Just as he is about to pull out another, he stops dead in his tracks.

Right behind his grave stands a little apple tree.

It’s not fully grown, not by a long shot, but two little apples the size of prunes hang on its branches.

Hyunwoo falls to his knees.

To find life, amidst all this death.

Here, of all places.

With him.

\--

They’re lying on their backs, underneath the apple tree. Their hands are clasped together.

“I wish life could be like this forever.” He muses, his voice soft and melancholic.

“I know, me too.” Hyunwoo turns on his side so he’s facing him.

“…Minhyuk? I love you.”

“I love you, too.” He says. “Always and forever.”

\--

“Always and forever.” Hyunwoo replies, his hand softly brushing the stone.

 

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: I cried like a baby while writing this.
> 
> Written in 2 hours on no sleep, unbeta'd as always.


End file.
